Entitled ‘Environmental Policy: Past, Present, and Future’, the special issue of ES&T recognises closure of a ‘green’ decade in which people became more aware of environmental issues, and society marked the 40th anniversaries of Earth Day, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Topics range from the mysterious disorder decimating honey bee colonies to ways to choose and manage energy sustainably. Those marked “Feature” are written in a less technical style and suitable for general readers, including students and non-scientists.

In addition to scientific research articles and features, the issue will include articles on policy analysis and critical reviews on environmental science and engineering. It will also review the history and directions of environmental policies.”

Environmental SCENE

On July 1, Chemical & Engineering News launched its first news channel. Called the Environmental SCENE, the channel provides news articles about environmental research, business, and policy, including coverage of climate change, pollution, toxic substances, energy, and sustainability. Drawing on content from the pages of C&EN, the news channel also contains its own original content, significantly expanding C&EN’s coverage of environmental research.

Readers will have free access all of the stories on the Environmental SCENE even if they do not have a subscription to C&EN.

The American Chemical Society has announced that its weekly newsmagazine Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) has launched its first news channel – the Environmental SCENE. The channel provides a steady stream of news about environmental research, business, and policy, including coverage of climate change, pollution, toxic substances, energy and sustainability.

The Environmental SCENE appears on C&EN’s website as well as on the websites of four ACS journals – Environmental Science & Technology, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Energy & Fuels and Chemical Research in Toxicology. One of the news channel’s primary goals is to provide tailored news of interest to readers of those journals, all of which have an environmental bent. But the stories will also be of interest and be accessible to anyone with an interest in environmental research, policy, and business.

The Environmental SCENE is edited by C&EN’s Lila Guterman and Michael Torrice. Drawing on content from the pages of C&EN, the news channel also produces its own original content, significantly expanding C&EN’s coverage of environmental research. The Environmental SCENE is the first of what will be several C&EN news channels. The magazine anticipates developing channels covering news in analytical chemistry and instrumentation, medicinal chemistry, organic chemistry, materials chemistry, the chemical-biology interface and other areas."

Under "Latest News" is where you’ll find the Environmental Scene RSS feed, etc.

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, has launched a new, free, web-based resource called Common Chemistry. This resource is helpful to non-chemists and others who might know either a chemical name or a CAS Registry Number of a common everyday chemical and want to pair both pieces of information.

Common Chemistry contains nearly 7,800 chemicals of widespread and general interest, as well as all 118 elements from the periodic table. With the exception of some of the elements, all other substances in this collection were deemed of widespread interest by having been cited 1,000 or more times in the CAS databases.

While not intended to be a comprehensive CAS Registry Number (CAS RN) lookup service, Common Chemistry does provide access to information on chemicals of general interest. The CAS Registry Number is recognised throughout the world as the most commonly used, unique identifier of chemical substances. The full CAS REGISTRYSM database contains more than 46 million organic and inorganic substances. Research discovery and patent tools such as SciFinder and STN allow users to search the entire database.

To read about the Green Chemistry Program at the EPA, click here. The ACS (American Chemical Society) is an active partner. Check out their Green Chemistry links. The RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) also has green chemistry links and publishes the key journal, Green Chemistry. Princeton University Library subscribes to this journal.

To subscribe to the Green Chemistry Program electronic newsletter, send a blank email to lyris@lists.epa.gov with the subject line: subscribe green_chemistry FirstName LastName